by Eve Newton
Lance looks vaguely amused. “Always her protector. What about me, Father?” he asks in earnest. His use of familial terms is creeping me out… again. “I was yours a thousand years before you even met her.”
“And yet you betrayed me. Went after her for your own purposes. You stopped being anything to do with me a very long time ago, Lance.”
“But you made me who I am. I learned from you. And you turned your back on me,” he presses.
My heart almost stops at his admission.
“I should have finished you for what you did,” Constantine snarls at him. “You are a disgrace and I am itching for a reason to end you.”
“Ah yes, my sister took pity on me. Deep down, she loves me. Why else would she stop you from killing me,” he says slyly, goading CK into a temper.
He moves quick as lightning to pin Lance to the wall.
“She is far too merciful. You should be grateful. Rest assured, I won’t make that mistake twice.”
“Why did you pick her over me?” Lance asks, suddenly, almost sadly. “We are alike, you and me. You should have picked me. Is it because she is a good fuck? I never got her to willingly give it up, but it was good all the same,” he sneers, his mood changing as abruptly as his sire’s always does, creeping me out even further. CK tightens his grip on him until he is seconds away from ripping his head off.
I hesitate, but my need to protect my sire rears its ugly, annoying head. “Don’t. CK, don’t do it. He isn’t worth it.”
“I won’t let him hurt you again. Don’t make his case for him, Aefre. Not this time.”
At this point, both Cole and Devon have joined us on the balcony, watching in horror at the scene playing out in front of them.
“As I told her, I am only here to offer my congratulations,” Lance chokes out. “And maybe ask for a seat on the new council for the Eastern European section,” he adds as a carefully planned afterthought. “After all, it should stay in the family, no?”
“You are not her family. You are not my family,” CK bellows at him. “Not after what you did.”
“Constantine, let him go.”
With a howl of frustration, he gives one final shove and lets him go, saying, “Don’t make a move or you will regret it.” He moves back to me but stays in front of me.
“Thank you, Sister,” Lance says. “I knew we could forget the past after all this time.”
“Forget? Forget? Forget what you did to me? Oh no. I will never forget. I don’t stop him for you, dear Brother, I do it to save him from having to kill his own charge. I won’t put him through that pain,” I spit at him with such a loathing that I never even had for Gregor.
“Well, either way I am grateful. Think about my offer. You know what I can bring to the table and you know that it will be a coup. I look forward to hearing from you. Soon.” And he blinks out, leaving me shaking and wanting to puke.
“Brother?” Cole asks. “Is he one of your siblings?”
“I take it that was Lance,” Devon adds and turns on CK. “What the fuck? Why do you continue to let him live after what he did to her?”
“Because I won’t let him kill his own charge,” I repeat forcefully. “Don’t turn on him, Devon. He does as I ask him.”
“But why?” he looks mournful. “Why would you be so merciful? If I could kill him myself I would.”
“Neither of you gets to make that decision. Killing your own bloodline is like killing yourself. I should know. I will not have Constantine be put through that because of me.”
“You are always trying to protect him. He should be the one protecting you,” Devon yells at us both.
“And do you not protect me?” I ask him earnestly, causing him to falter in his anger, having no defense. “I will destroy him myself. I assure you now that I have the capabilities, he will pay for his actions.”
“How so?” Devon asks as CK just stares at me, unable to comment.
“I don’t know yet, but I have a feeling my trusty sword will make an appearance,” I seethe. He steps back at the hatred emanating from me.
Cole, looking bewildered, catches my eyes. “What is going on, Liv?”
I sigh. “Remember that worse thing you didn’t really want to know about?”
He nods warily, remembering the conversation in my office after the Gregor revelation.
“Well, that is my worse.”
“What did he do to you?”
“What didn’t he do?” CK suddenly comes back to life.
“What did he do to you?” Cole repeats.
I take in a deep breath. “Follow me,” I say, leaving them to trail in my wake as I head downstairs.
Pausing briefly to pour a Scotch – who cares it’s early morning – I stop and stand in front of the stained-glass window in my office. They all look up at it quizzically. It is a rather gory scene, as Cole once pointed out, of a woman lying on an altar in a dungeon, split apart and bleeding out. Very much the martyr scenario, only in this case it was torture and the woman on the altar is me.
CHAPTER SEVENTY-FIVE
Castle Black, Transylvania, 1262 – Lucretia
I had long since given up. He told me it was twelve years since he took me, but it felt like longer. I was starving and in constant pain. I knew I deserved this for my years of being a savage beast, so I took it with no complaint. Well, as little complaint as I could manage. It was getting harder every day to endure and every day he broke me just that little bit more. There was no reprieve, it was the same every day and worse when the bells chimed. He told me that the villagers were praying for my soul in church, but that I didn’t deserve to be saved. He was right. I didn’t. I tried every day to call out to my sire to help me. To forgive my actions and rescue me, but he didn’t come. He never came.
After the carriage ride, I woke up in a beautiful room with lavish surroundings, but a locked door that I just could not open however hard I tried. Pounding on the door in frustration, I was left for weeks, growing weaker and weaker from lack of blood, when he finally came back.
Unable to pick myself up from the bed, he carefully sat down next to me, kindness on his face as he offered me a goblet of blood. I drank it down quickly and asked for more, but he refused. He wanted me weak and at his mercy. He undressed me slowly, taking great pleasure in my lack of resistance.
“Oh, you are even more beautiful than he said,” he murmured to me, but I didn’t know what or whom he was talking about.
He undressed himself and climbed on top of me. He kissed me, but I didn’t respond. It didn’t deter him from his task. He entered me slowly, relishing every second. He sped up and finished quickly, moaning into my mouth as I just lay there starved and in shock.
This treatment carried on for years. I saw the leaves turn and fall and turn and fall from the tower window. I wasn’t mistreated, just used every night. After a while, he started to look after me better, sending handmaidens to bathe and dress me, brush my hair and do all the things I wasn’t capable of doing myself.
But eventually, he grew tired of me and my unwillingness to accept him. He had me dragged to the dungeons to be treated as he then saw fit. The nightly visits continued, but I showed neither willingness nor fear, having been in this position so many times before it was nothing. I drifted off into my own world as he fucked me harder and harder, causing more damage each time he came to me. I was slow to heal with not having regular feedings and often I was left to bleed for days at a time.
He started getting crueler and crueler, getting angrier with me for not accepting him until he just couldn’t stop himself anymore. Every time the bells chimed, he came to me, dagger in hand and cut me open, navel to neck, pulling my flesh apart slowly and painfully. He separated my ribs and fed directly from my heart while I whimpered in agony. I couldn’t stop myself. He had broken me. I was completely shattered. I knew I would die here, at his hand. It took me all the time in between to recover from his torture and then he would return and do it all over again as the bells chime
d.
T he three of them are staring at me in varying degrees of horror and disgust as I finish up as much as I’m willing to tell right now. Not even Constantine knew what he really did and I know it is killing him hearing how his own creation could do that to me.
Devon speaks first, pointing to the stained glass. “That’s you? That’s you? What the fuck, Lizzie, why? Why?” he asks, desperately.
I’m not even sure what he is actually asking me, so I just blink at him as Cole stares at me in shock. I daren’t even look at CK, feeling his fury rolling off him in great big waves.
“And you spared him?” he asks quietly. “Why would you do that? I was prepared to kill him anyway. You should have let me!” he roars suddenly, losing his temper in a rare show again, picking up one of the chairs and throwing it at the window shattering it into a million pieces.
We all step back from the flying glass covering our eyes. Oh, wonderful, CK, that cost a fucking fortune, I think wryly, irrationally.
I cast my eyes to his now in the silence following the splintering of the glass. “I won’t be the reason you turn on your own. He has suffered being stuck in the dark, humiliated at being stripped. I was happy to leave him be if he left me alone, but now that he is back and I have the strength to do this myself, with your permission, I would like to end him,” I say formally to my sire, who just looks at me like I’m a day late and a dollar short.
“I will hold him down while you do it,” he says shortly after a very long pause.
“Liv?”
“Yes, Cole?” I prompt when he doesn’t continue.
But instead of speaking, he crosses over to me and hugs me tightly, crushing me to him so hard, I think my bones will break.
“Why would you let yourself be reminded of it?” he asks, pulling back and pointing to the now gaping hole in the wall. I study it closely and realize that I can’t even see the chair that CK threw at it. It must have ended up somewhere near the front gates.
“It wasn’t so much that I was reminding myself of it,” I say slowly.
Cole looks puzzled, but CK’s eyes focus on me in frustration, “Aefre. I have told you a thousand times, more even, that you were not responsible for what happened to you.”
“What do you mean not responsible? Why would you think you are, Liv?”
I look away from him ashamed of my own torturous behavior.
“I behaved in a manner that…”
“Aefre! You do not need to explain yourself.”
“Yes, I do! I behaved in a manner that attracted his attention. I brought it on myself. I deserved it.” I choke out a sob.
CK roughly pushes Cole out of the way to grab me and shake me. Geez, so much for the gentle touch.
“Stop this at once,” he orders me. “If anything, this is all my fault. I told you last week that all of this is my fault. If you are looking to blame someone, blame me. I won’t let you carry this on yourself. I created him. I made him. I warned you that day, before he turned up, but in my anger at you, I left you. I left you alone to be taken by him. I will never forgive myself for that.”
“You knew he was coming for her and you left her?” Devon yells at him.
He blinks. “I didn’t know for sure when, or if, he would turn up. Lucretia was making quite a name for herself in the…circles that he travels in. I knew he would be intrigued by her. More so as they are siblings, and what she meant to me. It’s no excuse. I should have dragged you back to Italy.” He looks back at me woefully.
“I’d like to have seen you try,” I sniffle, trying to sound strong but failing miserably. “I was in no mood to go anywhere with you.”
“Mood or not, if I had tried you would have come,” he says confidently.
I sigh, annoyed that my happy mood from before has been turned to misery by that monster showing up and causing all this.
“Why didn’t you go for her?” Devon demands. “Why did you leave her there?”
“His Romani had her behind wards. I had no idea that she was there,” CK says sadly.
“I’m going to Castelul Negru,” I say, making a sudden decision. “I’m going to make nice and then I’m going to kill him. Come, don’t come, I’m not bothered, but this ends. I have already taken out two of my enemies this week, might as well make it a third.”
“Aefre, going to him is not the way. And going back there? I really don’t think that is the best idea you’ve ever had.”
“What, you want to go back to the place where he… kept you?” Cole asks incredulously.
“I’m going. End of story,” I say, resolute.
“Well, you aren’t going alone,” Devon says.
“If you insist on this then, of course we will come with you. I am not letting you go anywhere near him without me, but let me do this. Let me avenge you like I should have back then,” CK says quietly.
“No. Absolutely not. This is my fight. I told you before, I can fight my own battles and I will this time.”
He nods, knowing he won’t change my mind.
“What did you mean by ‘make nice’?” Cole asks.
“I’m going to offer him what he wants. A seat at the table.”
“No, it is out of the question,” CK barks at me.
“Don’t worry, he won’t get anywhere near it. He was right about one thing: he can bring a lot. He has powerful magick bearers loyal to him. I want them on our side.”
“How do you plan on going about getting them to turn?”
“I don’t know yet. But I will think of something,” I say thoughtfully, chewing my lip. “We will leave tomorrow.”
“I’ll ring Jim,” Devon says, pulling his phone out of his pocket with a sigh.
“No, we will Astral in. His castle and the surrounding forest are isolated and protected by a cover of secrecy. We can get in and out without anyone seeing us.”
“How do you know that?” Cole asks hesitantly.
“I just know,” I say, shortly. Sitting down at my desk, I say to Devon, “Can you call to get someone to…” I wave my hand vaguely at the gaping hole that used to be the window.
CK looks slightly chagrined. “Sorry,” he mumbles.
I smile inwardly at his contrite tone. “No worries. It’s time for a change. I know exactly what I want,” I say offhandedly. Changing the subject, I say to Devon, who has finished his conversation, “In light of recent events and you are, of course, the obvious choice, I offer you the post of... Ambassador for the Vampires of North America.” I come up with the name in a flash of inspiration.
He looks slightly flustered but then pleased as he says, “I accept, Your Majesty,” with a low bow and I chuckle.
Straightening, he says, “I’m not sure what the job description is but I will do you proud.”
“I know you will, my love. As for the job description, I have no idea myself. We will all be having ‘on the job’ training, it seems. But for your first assignment, I want a meeting with Dmitri Novikov. Today.”
“Who now?” he queries.
“Dmitri Novikov,” I repeat. “He’s another… sibling. CK will give you his number,” I say blandly, not looking at my sire, who quite clearly, is looking at me with suspicion.
“May I inquire why you want to see Dmitri?” he asks, forcing me to look at him.
“I’m going to offer him the real seat for Eastern Europe. He can’t stand Lance either, so he will be happy to accept the subterfuge and step in once Lance is gone.”
“Hm,” he says softly. “Keeping it in the family indeed.”
“Indeed. It is time CK. I know it’s not what you want. That you like us scattered to the four corners of the Earth, but I think now is as good a time as any to start meeting and greeting the fam. As long as none of them try to torture and kill me, we should be just fine,” I add.
“I wouldn’t put it past some of them,” he mutters darkly, to which Cole’s eyebrows go up.
“Liv. I don’t think I’m altogether happy about this. What if they all turned
out like Lance?”
“I didn’t turn out like Lance!” I say, affronted. “Well, not for the most part anyway,” I amend.
“Constantine. Do you have any other charges that might try to hurt her?” Cole turns to my clearly uncomfortable sire.
“I am not discussing this. Aefre, leave it be.”
“I’m afraid I can’t do that, my love. I need a Council and who else am I supposed to get to sit? Charges of Eloise and Gregor’s?”
He ponders that and I can see it makes sense to him, but he is still reluctant to give up the goods. Finally, he says, “I will make a list and contact them myself.”
“No can do. I need to speak to them. I’m not hiring just on your say so. No offense!” I add, as he looks thunderous that I don’t trust his judgement.
“I will make a list and contact them myself, and then you can speak to them,” he says. He doesn’t fold much, but it’ll do… for now.
“Agreed. In the meantime, please pass Dmitri’s number to Devon or call him yourself, so that we can sort this today,” I say sweetly.
CHAPTER SEVENTY-SIX
I n the end, he chooses to call himself, going off in a sulk back to Milan to do just that, under my promise that I will bring forth Gladius Infernus if Lance shows back up. Not that he can with it being daylight out now.
Cole and I go back to bed as I’m suddenly weary again. There are a long few days ahead of us with yet more time-difference traveling.
I strip off my robe and climb into bed. He curls up behind me with a sigh. “You have suffered so much in your life. Has it been worth it to live this long? With all this grief and pain?”
Having expected this for some time now, I turn to him and stroke his face. I kiss him softly. “To be here with you, like this, yes, it has been worth every second.”
He closes his eyes in contentment at my words and my gentle touch. “Tell me about your parents, your human ones,” he murmurs. “I never really thought about it before, but after hearing about Tiamat, it seems important now. Did you have real brothers or sisters?”